Arts watch. COMMENTARY.

If Size Matters, `Godzilla' Is Really A Monster

May 20, 1998|By Mark Caro, Tribune Staff Writer.

You've got to hand it to those "Godzilla" marketing geniuses. They've taken an American spinoff of a fromage-scented Japanese monster movie series and convinced everyone that it's the event of the summer.

All of those billboards--"His foot is as big as this bus," "His back is as steep as Comiskey Park's upper deck," "His nostril is as long as the Chunnel," etc.--have prepped audiences to expect that their neighborhood multiplexes somehow will contain something more huge and awesome than they've seen before on those same screens.

The studio folks even snatched the phrase "size does matter" from "Titanic" story headline writers. "Godzilla" may be its ultimate test: Did people swarm to "Titanic" for its scale or heart-wrenching drama? If "Godzilla" approaches the success of "Titanic," then those of us rooting for movies to have more heart should throw in their life rafts.

Part of the "Godzilla" buildup was the studio's refusal to release pictures of the monster ahead of time. Oooh, what will Godzilla look like?

Guess what? He looks like Godzilla--i.e., a honkin' big lizard. Picture a T-Rex from "Jurassic Park," then bend him over a bit.

Some movies are meant to be savored. Some are meant to pass through your system like a jug full of prune juice: under the right circumstances, you may enjoy the experience immensely, but you won't necessarily want to think too much about it afterward.

"Godzilla" director/co-writer Roland Emmerich and producer/co-writer Dean Devlin proved themselves masters of the movie for the moment with their previous blockbuster, 1996's "Independence Day." It was entirely, necessarily visceral; you had to turn off your brain or succumb to a state of inner rebellion--"No, I don't know how he hacked into that alien computer! Leave me alone!"

Likewise, "Godzilla" is built for riding, not contemplating. The media manipulation surrounding its opening can be no coincidence. First, the 139-minute movie's first screening for critics was scheduled for 9 p.m. Monday, which pushes certain newspapers (including this one) to the deadline brink to get a review into a features section on Wednesday.

Then with days' notice, Tri-Star moved the opening from Wednesday to Tuesday night, meaning that either the public could run out to the theaters with no advance word--just as they could for other not-screened movies like "Species II" and Carrot Top's "Chairman of the Board"--or newspapers would scramble to get in a last-minute review. (The Tribune was able to run a Tuesday review because Los Angeles-based staff writer Gary Dretzka had seen an industry screening before Monday.)

Rushed reviews would work to the studio's advantage if: 1) writers are composing while coming down from the movie's adrenaline rush (too bad "Godzilla" becomes stupefyingly boring), and 2) they don't have time to think of all the Mothra-sized holes in the plot. Like:

Why is Godzilla fast enough to duck missiles shot from airplanes and submarines yet unable to catch up to humans in a taxi or hoofing it?

Could humans really fend off these oversized lizards by slamming doors in their faces and, in one case, tying a fire hose around the handles?

If you were using a mountain of fish to lure Godzilla into a trap, would you place it in the middle of Manhattan, where each monster step and tail sweep causes massive destruction, instead of, say, by the water?

Scientific explanation aside, are we really supposed to buy that a home pregnancy test would work on a genetically mutated lizard?

Why, oh why, do they keep firing guns at him?

The original "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" (1954) may look silly now, but at least it grew out of some genuine national angst: Hydrogen-bomb experiments create a gargantuan, fire-breathing monster that wreaks havoc on a Japan still reeling from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The new Godzilla was born of nuclear-bomb testing as well, but its origin is just a plot device that has little resonance once the chasing and trivial subplots start. The movie plays like "Jurassic Park III," with endless roaring attacks in the rain, baby 'zillas that act like raptors and humans that act like bland cartoons.

Here's a sampling of what characters say before they bite it:

"I think we got him."

"I think I lost him."

Opening on a record 7,000-plus screens nationwide, the generically engineered "Godzilla" aspires to be a monster. We'll see how well they've programmed the rest of us.